The Lift Zones in low-income communities will provide free Wi-Fi for three years. Photo via comcast.com

Comcast is giving a technology lift to thousands of people throughout the Houston metro area.

The media and tech giant says it has started 50 WiFi-equipped "Lift Zones" at community centers across the region. These zones enable low-income students and their families to take advantage of free internet service. The centers will enjoy access to free WiFi for three years.

Among the local organizations hosting Lift Zones are BakerRipley, Boys & Girls Clubs of Greater Houston, the Tejano Center for Community Centers, the City of Houston, Harris County, and the City of Galveston.

"The COVID-19 crisis put many at risk of being left behind, accelerating the need for comprehensive digital equity and internet adoption programs to support them. We hope these Lift Zones will help those who, for a variety of reasons, are unable to connect to effective distance learning at home," Ralph Martinez, regional senior vice president of Comcast Houston, says in a news release.

In December, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner and Comcast announced establishment of nine Lift Zones at city-operated community centers. These were the first Life Zones to be installed in the Houston area. The nine locations are:

  • Acres Homes Multi-Service Center.
  • DeZavala Community Center.
  • Emancipation Community Center.
  • Hartman Community Center.
  • Kashmere Multi-Service Center.
  • Magnolia Multi-Service Center.
  • Melrose Community Center.
  • Southwest Multi-Service Center.
  • Third Ward Multi-Service Center.

"The pandemic has underscored the need for students to have internet access to support their education and not fall behind in the classroom. Parents must also have options that work for them," Turner said in a December news release.

At no cost, Comcast outfits each Lift Zone location with a WiFi setup powered by Comcast Business. At each site, users can tap into a combination of Comcast Business' internet, WiFi Pro and SecurityEdge offerings.

Lift Zones complement Comcast's Internet Essentials program, which has helped connect about 10 million low-income Americans to the internet at home, including nearly 1 million Texans.

According to the Pew Research Center, roughly one-fourth of adults with annual household income below $30,000 don't own a smartphone, while about four in 10 lack home broadband services or a desktop or laptop computer. In March, President Biden signed legislation providing more than $3 billion in subsidies to boost broadband access in low-income areas.

Comcast recently unveiled a $1 billion, 10-year commitment to support digital equity, including the Lift Zones initiative. The initiative, introduced in September, aims to establish WiFi-connected safe spaces at more than 1,000 community centers nationwide for students and adults by the end of 2021.

"For nearly a decade, Internet Essentials has helped to change the lives of millions of people by providing low-income families with internet access at home," Dave Watson, president and CEO of Comcast Cable, said in a September news release. "These Lift Zones, which will be installed in community centers in local neighborhoods that our partners have identified and will run, will be places where students and families can get online and access the resources they need, especially while so many schools and workplaces have gone virtual."

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Oxy's $1.3B Texas carbon capture facility on track to​ launch this year

gearing up

Houston-based Occidental Petroleum is gearing up to start removing CO2 from the atmosphere at its $1.3 billion direct air capture (DAC) project in the Midland-Odessa area.

Vicki Hollub, president and CEO of Occidental, said during the company’s recent second-quarter earnings call that the Stratos project — being developed by carbon capture and sequestration subsidiary 1PointFive — is on track to begin capturing CO2 later this year.

“We are immensely proud of the achievements to date and the exceptional record of safety performance as we advance towards commercial startup,” Hollub said of Stratos.

Carbon dioxide captured by Stratos will be stored underground or be used for enhanced oil recovery.

Oxy says Stratos is the world’s largest DAC facility. It’s designed to pull 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air and either store it underground or use it for enhanced oil recovery. Enhanced oil recovery extracts oil from unproductive reservoirs.

Most of the carbon credits that’ll be generated by Stratos through 2030 have already been sold to organizations such as Airbus, AT&T, All Nippon Airways, Amazon, the Houston Astros, the Houston Texans, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks and TD Bank.

The infrastructure business of investment manager BlackRock has pumped $550 million into Stratos through a joint venture with 1PointFive.

As it gears up to kick off operations at Stratos, Occidental is also in talks with XRG, the energy investment arm of the United Arab Emirates-owned Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., to form a joint venture for the development of a DAC facility in South Texas. Occidental has been awarded up to $650 million from the U.S. Department of Energy to build the South Texas DAC hub.

The South Texas project, to be located on the storied King Ranch, will be close to industrial facilities and energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. Initially, the roughly 165-square-mile site is expected to capture 500,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, with the potential to store up to 3 billion metric tons of CO2 per year.

“We believe that carbon capture and DAC, in particular, will be instrumental in shaping the future energy landscape,” Hollub said.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.

New app by Sports Illustrated grants access to 700 sports courts in Houston

Goal!

A new sports center booking app CatchCorner, powered by Sports Illustrated, enables sports enthusiasts in Houston to seamlessly secure a spot for a quick game without membership fees.

It soft-launched in Houston this spring and, according to co-founder and chief operating officer Maya Azouri, has been a huge success.

"The Houston expansion has been jaw-dropping," she said. "Up until now, CatchCorner’s launch in New York City had been our most successful market, but Houston has launched on par with it."

Within a 30-day period this summer, over 30,000 users join the app, Azouri noted, adding that the app would include 700 unique recreational spaces users can choose from in the city.

"There’s a real sports culture here, with athletes of all levels from casual weekend players to competitive amateurs and even pros. The diversity of the sports community, combined with the number of high-quality facilities across the city, makes it a perfect fit for CatchCorner," she said.

CatchCorner in Houston offers bookings for basketball, volleyball, soccer, pickleball, padel, baseball, badminton, and tennis, with plans to include golf simulators and ice rink sports soon. The Zone Sports, Toros HTX, PAC Gym, and Houston Pickleball Center are among the most popular venues.

Using the app is a snap. Once you pick your sport, venues with available slots are listed including distance from you with the booking schedules in the results so there are no surprises. The slots can go fast, so occasional error messages pop up when trying to book, but it's otherwise a three-click process. CatchCorner also helpfully includes a picture of the facilities while booking.

CatchCorner announced Google integration in June that lets users book through the app directly from searches when they look up specific venues. This is slightly less intuitive to use than the app, but it does ultimately work in both mobile and desktops versions. Either way, it greatly streamlines the booking process for people who just want to schedule a quick pickup game somewhere.

"It’s especially useful for casual players or people who want to organize something on short notice," said Azouri. "Whether it’s a weekend basketball run, a weekday futsal match, or a spontaneous pickleball game with friends, CatchCorner makes it easy to coordinate without the usual logistical headaches.

"Some feedback here has been that we’re like 'Expedia for sports.' It’s because booking a flight online is that easy, booking your next game or workout should be just as simple."

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This article originally appeared on CultureMap.com.